Review – Cryptozoic Man #2 (of 4)

In its first issue, Cryptozoic Man raised more than few questions, and although issue #2 attempts to answer one or two of them, it takes far too long to do so.

Issue #2 takes a step back from itself, slowing the pace of the story almost to a stop. Instead of attempting to move things forward in any way, Bryan Johnson and Walt Flanagan spend pretty much every page of this issue establishing the villain’s back story, and when you have a four-issue miniseries that raises as many questions as this one does, wasting an entire issue without progressing the story even a little is sure to be a bad move.

Almost every page raises a question, usually involving ‘why?’, and you can assume the writers will struggle to answer them all. The dialogue in this issue is marginally better written than in the first, but that really isn’t saying much, and Flanagan’s art goes from being perfectly acceptable on one page, to completely amateurish on the next. The character design is lazy and badly executed, and Flanagan seems unable to draw symmetrical faces, with every character having skewed features and squint noses.

It’s a shame, but Cryptozoic Man is failing across the board. The simplest way to sum it up is to say that the creators are trying too hard to make this book clever, when clearly it is anything but. The premise is just far too complicated to keep it interesting, and the pacing is all over the place. If you’re a hardcore Comic Book Men/anything-Kevin-Smith-related fan, then you could maybe see past its flaws, but I hold myself among said fans, and I still can’t stand this book.

Rating: 4/10.

The writer of this piece was:Alan Shields (aka Al)
You can also find Al on Facebook